


Ex Cathedra

by autiotalo (orphan_account)



Category: Die Ärzte, Rammstein
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-28
Updated: 2010-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 06:28:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/autiotalo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'The Wall may have fallen, but the divisions remained. He would always be the pretty Western boy, and I would eternally remain the ugly brat from the East.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ex Cathedra

The whole thing was just an accident. An accident, or a coincidence: it depends on your belief system. Paul, the happy little hippie, would say that coincidences don't exist, that such things are part of some great cosmic whole. I say bullshit to that. It's just an accident. And meeting him that day was definitely like an accident: a car-crash, a train-wreck – something that, once I'd caught a glimpse of it, I couldn't look away from.

I was staring up at the wriggling roof that shielded the expanse of the Great Court, and then I looked down, dizzy for a moment as the honey-coloured stone of the Reading Room clashed with the lighter marbles that surrounded it. And I saw him. Just a brief glimpse before I turned my head. Not because I was unsure if it had really been him or not, but because I didn't want to acknowledge him, or myself.

It's very easy to remain anonymous in such a crowded place. I put my head down and scuffed along beside a school party, sweeping past the place I'd seen him. He wasn't there anymore. I supposed he'd had the same reaction to me as I had had to him. I had a momentary sense of relief, and then curiosity got the better of me. What was he doing here?

Museums make me proprietary. The atmosphere almost encourages it. Earlier, I'd overheard two students discussing the repatriation of the Elgin Marbles. Their debate was calm and rational, completely detached. What did they care, ultimately, about the fate of several hundred pieces of carved stone? What did anybody care, for that matter? As far as I could see it, the argument was about imperialism and politics; saying sorry for the acts of two, three, ten, twenty generations ago.

He and I knew all about saying sorry. Even my youngest daughter will have to say sorry, due entirely to the accident of her birth that made her German and not French, or Russian, or – God forbid – American. But he and I have to be more publicly contrite, because of who we are and what we are perceived to stand for.

I like being misunderstood. But not when I have to apologise for it.

There's a café in the Great Court that nests in the corner, with long, stainless steel tables. I bought a drink and sat down, eying the spill and detritus of previous diners. A Japanese couple sat next to me, chattering to one another. The table filled up: plates were pushed to one side, cutlery rattled. I felt the gnawing need for a cigarette, and lifted my cup to drink the rest of my coffee.

Then he sat down opposite me.

I put down my cup and wiped my mouth with the paper napkin that sat in the saucer. Then I screwed the napkin into a ball, and dropped it into the cup. It sucked in the remnants of the coffee, turning from off-white into a murky brown. I did it all slowly, waiting for him to speak; but he didn't. I was surprised at that. So I spoke instead.

"Hello…" I stumbled at the first hurdle. I didn't feel entitled to address him by his real name; and his stage name was, I thought, stupid.

He gave me a small, tight smile of acknowledgement. "I shouldn't have disturbed you."

"Are you sorry?"

He seemed surprised by the question. "No."

I looked at him. He wore black, a habit every bit as tedious as my chain-smoking, although probably less dangerous to the health. I'd seen him on MTV a few weeks ago: looking exhausted despite the bone-deep tan he'd acquired from whatever obscure holiday destination he'd just returned from. Now the tan was fading from caramel to honey, but he still looked tired, the lines around his eyes underscoring his weariness. His hair was slicked flat against his head, blond and sun-white. Usually it stuck up like a rooster's crest. Instinctively I dragged at my own fringe, combed it down and inwards across my face, hiding.

I expected him to make some comment about coincidence, but he didn't. Instead he sat there and stared at my coffee cup as if it was one of the exhibits. Without looking at me, he said, "Did you come here to see anything specific?"

"Not really." I shrugged, even though he wasn't looking. "I try to come here whenever I'm in London. I always look at the Reading Room." And I gestured towards the circular heart of the Great Court.

This time he followed my movement, and glanced over his shoulder. I stared at the sharp lines of his cheekbone and jaw and thought what a beautiful-looking creature he was. On TV he was all teeth and legs and talk, a one-trick pony in a three-ring circus. This was different, though. He was different.

"What about you?" I asked when he turned back. "You here for anything?"

"The Korean stuff," he said. "All the Far Eastern collection, actually."

My surprise must have been obvious. "Thought you'd have liked the mummies," I said.

"Bela might." It was his turn to shrug. "I prefer my history to be a little less Boris Karloff. There's nothing appealing about the dead." He touched his forefinger to the saucer in front of me. "I've never looked in the Reading Room."

"Marx used to write in there," I said.

"I know. That's why I've never been in." This time, his smile was softer and more hesitant, and then, when I refused to respond, he looked away again.

I was unrepentant. The Wall may have fallen, but the divisions remained. He would always be the pretty Western boy, and I would eternally remain the ugly brat from the East. It irritated me to think that back then we gaped after Western music so lustfully, when what we created in the East was far more meaningful.

"I need a smoke," I said, and I stood up. I meant it to signal the end of our brief, bizarre meeting. Instead, uninvited, he uncurled himself from the chair and came along with me.

Out on the steps at the front, I lit up and took a deep drag on the Marlboro. He stood and watched me, and I remembered that he didn't smoke. He was famous for not doing a lot of things. I wondered idly if he didn't fuck. But still, I tried to keep my toxic exhalations away from him.

We edged down the steps, and I said, "Flake thinks you're a genius."

"But you don't."

It was a strange comeback. I looked at him. "No, I don't," I said, and then, when I could see he wanted more, I continued: "Musically you're just pastiche. Maybe that's why Flake likes you, I don't know. It's your lyrics I hate -"

He raised his eyebrows, startled by my tone. "Hate?"

"Yeah. I fucking hate you." I took a final lungful of smoke and tossed the cigarette to the ground. "I really hate Farin Urlaub."

He lifted his chin and smiled. "Sometimes I hate him, too."

"You hate yourself?" I realised as soon as the words left my mouth that it was an incredibly foolish thing to say. That I, of all people, should say such a thing… it was almost too precious to be funny.

He tilted his head, self-conscious as I stared at him. "Yeah. I suppose you think I deserve it. That anybody who can divide himself into two quite disparate entities should suffer from a little insanity sooner or later."

"Entities." I scrabbled for another cigarette. "That's dramatic. As if you're possessed."

"You've never had that experience?"

I lit up, inhaling the snap of brimstone from the lighter. And then I lied: "No."

He stood there a moment longer, then said, "Okay. I made a mistake. Forgive me for disturbing you," and then he walked away.

I watched him go, puzzled; and then I went after him. Not because I felt bad, but because I wanted to know what he meant. So I shadowed him down Coptic Street and along to the tube station. There he turned around and asked, "Why are you following me?"

I shrugged. "I lied to you."

He smiled slightly. "So are you sorry?"

"No."

"Then we are equal. At least in terms of not apologising for something we shouldn't apologise for." He was quite endearing when he got enthusiastic. "I find that too many people apologise for nothing at all. Or for everything, including things that they didn't do -"

"You're blocking the way." I put my hand in the small of his back and shunted him down the steps into the station. He jumped at the contact, but allowed me to leave my hand there as I steered him like a recalcitrant child through the ticket barriers and down to the track.

"Where are we going, by the way?"

"St Paul's."

I snagged his sleeve as he went in the wrong direction. "What's at St Paul's?"

"A God I don't believe in."

"I don't believe in Him, either. Let's not go there."

He swung out of my grasp and turned to look at me. "You know, if we're talking about possession then we really need to believe in some sort of higher power."

"Can we not believe in the Self?"

The train arrived and we went inside. The doors slid closed, and we stood there in the warm flickering half-light, our heads almost brushing the roof of the carriage. We must have made an unlikely pair, but the British are if nothing restrained in their curiosity.

He swung on the hand-straps and recited, "Mind the gap" in English as if it were a mantra. Then, satisfied by the agitated rustle of a newspaper nearby, he continued our conversation: "Believing in ego is dangerous."

"Why?" I was amused, and so I slouched against the side of the carriage. "I thought you were such a slave to it. All those songs about, what, your cock or your friends being into S&M or how your fans are so dumb because they buy your CDs…"

"Hey!" He let go of one of the straps and almost swung into me. His eyes were very bright, more green than brown beneath the fluorescent lighting of the underground. "That," he said, prodding his forefinger hard into my chest, "is called irony. Don't tell me you don't do irony. What was that song you did about you not understanding your fans?"

I rolled my eyes. "I knew we shouldn't have bothered with that one."

"Of course, you would prefer a more subtle song." He flittered away from me and came to rest against the door. "That's why you hate me. Because I'm not subtle."

"I said I hated Farin Urlaub," I said slowly after a moment. "Your entity, or whatever you want to call him. I don't hate… you."

The train stopped and we filed along the platform. I hunched into myself, as is my wont; and then I noticed that he is quite easy about his body. We're the same height, he and I: but he looked taller. Such freedom made me want to curl up even tighter.

We emerged out onto concrete slabs, and he took three quick steps away from me towards the looming mass of the cathedral, as if he wanted to put distance between us. Then he turned and looked at me hard.

"What I said about being possessed… You do know what it's like, don't you?"

I sighed and reached for my Marlboros. "Yeah. And I have an entity, too. One that likes to pretend that he's a poet. Writes endless drivel on the back of fag packets." I lifted up the Marlboros in demonstration, and he smiled. "And some of this shit I can turn into songs. The rest I try to publish under a pseudonym."

He stepped closer; really stepped, like a pony: but he was no longer a one-trick pony to me. His expression was kind. "And what happens to the poet's words?"

I made him wait while I lit the cigarette. "They get rejected," I said, and I wondered if he knew how much effort it took to keep my voice level when I said that.

He nodded, and then was brutal: "I think your poems are shit."

I blew out a plume of smoke and said, "So do I. Therein lies the problem."

"Does the poet believe that the poems are shit, though?" he asked.

That gave me pause. I'd never considered it before, but… if I thought of myself as a man divided, then why was it that I had two thought processes when it came to creation and only one response to the result?

I dropped the cigarette half-smoked, and stared at him. His divisions were much deeper than mine, it seemed. Mine was a whining child in comparison; an entity that didn't quite live for itself. Maybe I should be thankful for that.

"How do you do it?" I asked.

He whirled away from me – quite literally, as if he was dancing. A few passers-by craned their heads to watch, and then lost interest. He came to a halt to one side of me, his coat still eddying around his legs, and then he put his head down and raised his gaze in a strange, demure contortion.

"This is Farin Urlaub," he said, and then he moved again, this time to my other side. He stood a little straighter, but seemed much wearier. "And this is Jan Vetter." He smiled, a manic thing that almost frightened me, and then he let it dissolve. He leaned against me briefly and said, "You know, sometimes I can't tell the difference myself. It's hateful, then. I have to get away. But I carry it with me wherever I go, and there's no escape. That's why I was hoping… That's why I came over. To ask how you did it."

It wasn't at all what I'd expected. I just stared at him, and then he came close and took my face in his hands and brushed his lips over mine: a chaste thing, a butterfly kiss – if indeed a kiss was what it was. Then he scampered away again, and said from the shadow of St Paul's: "I'm glad we talked."

"Has it helped?" I asked, as uncertain as when we'd first met.

"No. But I'm hopeful that maybe one day it will."

He turned then, and began to walk away. I felt as if I were grasping at something that hovered just beyond my reach; and so I called out: "Jan. Maybe we should talk again sometime."

He smiled. "I'd like that. But Till… you should really give up smoking."

I touched my hand to my mouth and huffed. But I was smiling as I watched him slide deeper into the shadows of the cathedral, until he was lost from view.


End file.
